The Price of Fish: A New Approach to Wicked Economics and Better Decisions

In The Price of Fish Michael Mainelli and Ian Harris examine in a unique way the world’s most abiding and wicked problems – sustainability, global warming, over-fishing, overpopulation, the pensions crisis; all of which are characterized by a set of messy, circular, aggressive and peculiarly long-term problems – and go on to suggest that it is not the circumstances that are too complex, but our way of reading them that is too simple. Too simple and often wrong. Looking to the models developed by quantum physicists, the authors aim to blend four streams – choice, economics, systems and evolution – in a combination they believe is the key to making better decisions and, in turn, finding answers to the world’s most pernicious problems. Transactional commerce – buying and selling – is only a small part of the real world of commerce in the larger sense of the word. This book goes beyond economics alone to look at real commerce, and the ways complex interactions adapt and change over time: the price of fish, for instance, cannot be right when we have over-fishing, hunger and ruined seas.